How cancer starts: how a normal cell turns into cancer
Telomeres: how cancer cells learn to divide forever
In a dish, a normal human cell copies itself about 50 times and then stops. Some cells taken from one woman in 1951 have never stopped. What did they change, and what does it have to do with the tips of your DNA?
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How does a cell count its copies? Its DNA is packed in long pieces called chromosomes. Each one has a cap at both ends, a bit like the plastic tip of a shoelace. These caps are called telomeres.
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Each time the cell copies its DNA, the ends of each chromosome come out a little shorter. So the telomeres shrink, copy after copy.
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